Caledon Oxbridge Q&A for 2013-09-15

14:55 marycaid hey every one
14:55 Ravelli Ormstein Hello Miss Caid
14:56 Marion Questi Hello Miss Marycaid. Please have a seat!
14:56 marycaid um okay
14:56 Martini Discovolante our gutters are scheduled to be replaced on the 18th. of course, so Jay had to do a little trenching
14:57 Martini Discovolante but we had just had a cracked window and all the sills replaced and painted... or we would be swimming inside as well as out.
14:57 marycaid is this like a play
14:57 Ravelli Ormstein such a hard rain?
14:57 Martini Discovolante caulkcaulkcaulk!
14:57 Ravelli Ormstein reminds me to the movie Hard Rain
14:57 Martini Discovolante it will be a Q&A session, Miss Caid
14:58 marycaid oh
14:58 Martini Discovolante ravelli-- 10-14 inches in a few days
14:58 Martini Discovolante if it was snow, would be over 100"
14:58 Marion Questi In the South Plate basin we have had a year's worth of rain in a week.
14:58 Larkylouz The people on stage are the Deans of Oxbridge. They answer all sorts of questions.
14:58 Martini Discovolante /me nods
14:59 Larkylouz Oh, Dean Questi. I have been reading about the floods in Colorado!
14:59 Gronk Seriman Apparently, your area needed a washing.
15:00 Martini Discovolante :(
15:00 Marion Questi Miss Marycaid, the Q&A will begin in just a couple minutes..
15:00 marycaid um okay welll im not in a rush
15:00 Larkylouz I was just a little girl when Denver flooded in 1965. I remember playing in the small river that was our street.
15:01 Martini Discovolante that was before we moved here, you can still see the discoloration on hte Cherry Creek dam today
15:01 Larkylouz I remember the discoloration on the buildings we could see frim the freeway. *from
15:02 Martini Discovolante /me nods.
15:02 Marion Questi Let us begin!
15:02 Marion Questi This is an "open mic" Q&A which we hold at this time every week. We, the Deans of Oxbridge, assemble to answer questions from the attendees about Oxbridge, it's mission and operation, or about SL in general.

Rather than introduce ourselves, you can find a list of all the Deans with summaries of their respective areas of responsibility, on the Oxbridge website: http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/qna_index.php
15:02 Marion Questi Who would like to ask the first question?
15:04 marycaid um i would so im new to second life so what exactly is oxbridge
15:03 Ravelli Ormstein Oxbridge is a virtual university, settled in the Independent State Of Caledon
15:03 marycaid oh that sounds cool
15:03 Martini Discovolante we teach Second Life Skills
15:04 Ravelli Ormstein its focus is on teaching how to live in Second Life, and how to create content
15:04 Marion Questi A very specialized university....:)
15:04 Martini Discovolante Virtual in all respects.
15:04 marycaid well how do you get into this university
15:04 Tali Rosca The teachers are volunteers, and the classes are open for anybody to drop by.
15:05 Martini Discovolante you are already in :)
15:05 marycaid oh
15:05 Tali Rosca They are scheduled regularly each week.
15:05 Marion Questi I have just sent you an invitation to the group.
15:05 Ravelli Ormstein to become a scholar you just have to join our group for free, what you already did
15:05 Larkylouz You may join the Oxbridge Scholars group which entitles you access to a chat group where you can ask questions.
15:05 Tali Rosca And yes, this could indeed be considered one such class, though the QA is a bit special, and more "off the cuff".
15:06 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Chat group also has class announcements.
15:06 marycaid i have another question can you have a boyfriend on second life
15:06 Tali Rosca Usually, the teachers have a more planned lecture.
15:06 Marion Questi Many people do.
15:06 Ravelli Ormstein it is like in the real life, we all have friends here, and some have affairs...
15:06 marycaid oh
15:07 Martini Discovolante Second Life is much like Real Life, on many respects.
15:07 Ravelli Ormstein but you don't have to, it's your choice what you want to do
15:07 Tali Rosca People are typically more closely attached to their SL avatars than to most other game characters.
15:07 Martini Discovolante but i do recommend that you take our Avatar Safety class here
15:07 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) SL relationships are like Real Life relationships; There is a RL person behind most avatars.
15:08 Tali Rosca So you are often "closer" to the people behind the avatar than you'd be in the average MMO.
15:08 Martini Discovolante Second Life is like anyplace else on the internet.. common sense and caution shpould prevail
15:08 Tali Rosca How that translates to friendships, relationship and romance is up to you.
15:08 Larkylouz But you can't assume that the person you see on the screen is who they say they are. Anyone can be a dragon, a cat, a man or a woman.
15:09 Martini Discovolante or a porcupine!
15:09 Larkylouz LOL - good point, Dean
15:09 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Or TIE fighter or plankton or Tree of life or....
15:09 Martini Discovolante anythign you like.
15:09 Martini Discovolante lol-- or a fuzzy glowing orb.
15:10 marycaid ok i think i got it second life is just like real life
15:10 Tali Rosca ...with more porcupines.
15:10 Martini Discovolante one of the most talented builders i ever met in SL was a refrigerator with a fish in it :)
15:10 Tali Rosca I *assume* you mean in SL.
15:10 Tali Rosca If in RL, I am even more impressed.
15:10 Gronk Seriman It's best to not judge on the texture of people's skin, but on the content of their character.
15:10 Martini Discovolante but there was still a person behind the appliance!
15:11 marycaid next week are you going to have this on sunday
15:11 Ravelli Ormstein yes, it happens weekly
15:11 Larkylouz And it is different every week!
15:11 marycaid ok than you for your time
15:11 marycaid *thank
15:12 Tali Rosca The QA? Yes, that's a regularly scheduled event. You can see the schedule for the other classes next to the stairs leading up to this room.
15:12 Marion Questi Next question?
15:12 Larkylouz And here: http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/class_schedule.php
15:13 Meora (menchor) Facebook integration is coming to the Linden viewer comments?
15:13 Larkylouz I have been putting together a list of G-rated neat places to visit. I think it is ready to go real-time. I'll give a copy to each Dean. Anyone else who wants one, just ask.
15:13 Gronk Seriman Gah!
15:14 Martini Discovolante oooh thank you Larky!!!
15:14 Tali Rosca Easy way to post a snapshot to an existing social media profile. And better then the half-hearted social media wannabe LL attempted with the profile feed.
15:14 Gronk Seriman My Gah! was to Meora, Not Larky!
15:14 Meora (menchor) Ha ha ha hahahaaa
15:14 Marion Questi It's a capability I shall be ignoring...:)
15:14 Tali Rosca Not going to use it, though, not being on Facebook.
15:14 Larkylouz /me is with Dean Questi
15:14 Martini Discovolante even tho we are not supposed to have FB accounts, as we aare not real?
15:15 Meora (menchor) that was part of the issue
15:15 Tali Rosca I am fairly active on G+, though, and I can easily imagine the functionality being extended to that.
15:16 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Well, many inworld businesses already have FB pages.
15:16 Tali Rosca I am honestly not sure how it relates to Facebook's "only real persons" policy.
15:16 Tali Rosca But the defense is probably that it can post to your RL Facebook profile.
15:16 Ravelli Ormstein Facebook don't allow accounts for fake accounts, or accounts which don't use the correct name. from time to time they delete such accounts. so an account for a SL avatar on Facebook might be temporarily only
15:17 Gronk Seriman It's sad LL keeps wanting SL to tie in to every latest interweb trend. Not realizing they have a perfectly dysfunctional but successful world of their own.
15:17 Tali Rosca So it doesn't *require* you to use an avatar identity on Facebook.
15:17 Martini Discovolante true, Tali.
15:17 Meora (menchor) in theory its not allowed
15:17 Ravelli Ormstein perhaps Facebook would prefer to push CloudParty instead of SL...
15:17 Tali Rosca In fairness, you can't really call social media some random, latest Internet fad.
15:18 Tali Rosca I'd prefer to see integration to the social media of your choice, though, rather than only Facebook.
15:19 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Personally, I know several people in Facebook who do not use their real names. But there have had no trouble, because they still don't pretend to be some celebrity or something likethat.
15:19 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) I also know some people who have FB "alts" :-)
15:19 Meora (menchor) also an account with an ordinary name and fake data is hard to catch
15:19 Gronk Seriman Wasn't the whole dropping of assigned names and making everybody "Resident" a result of their last attempt to interface with Facebook?
15:20 Tali Rosca Well, with RL identities in general.
15:20 Tali Rosca I don't think they specifically targeted Facebook.
15:21 Tali Rosca But yes, a large part of it was that you could now have your real name, independently of your login name.
15:21 Meora (menchor) I think they aren't realizing there is marketing that can be done to avatars
15:21 Tali Rosca ...instead we get unreadable unicode versions of the login name :-S
15:22 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) OR rehashed WoW names
15:22 Tali Rosca The curious thing is that you can do *very targeted* marketing based on the avatar identities.
15:22 Martini Discovolante i rather miss waiting for new names to come out, and the way people got creative with them.
15:22 Tali Rosca Because they often represent very dedicated interests.
15:23 Meora (menchor) exactly Tali
15:23 Ravelli Ormstein i once met a Arthur Canon Doyle here at Oxbridge
15:23 Tali Rosca They are harder to correlate, though, which may be why many marketers shy away from them.
15:24 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 whispers: [READY] : Published by ArthurConan Doyle.
15:24 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 whispers: [READY] : 62 pages.
15:24 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 whispers: [READY] : ID: 0-812-28-163-1-19-57-DsOQ
15:24 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 whispers: [READY] : Date published: Dec 28, 2008
15:24 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 whispers: [READY] : THiNC Publication v2.5a Script
15:24 Gronk Seriman ?
15:25 Meora (menchor) someone needs to realize you can market to avatars and how to target them it can't be that hard
15:25 Shouten Haller /me awkwardly enters the lecture hall during a long silent prayer
15:26 Ravelli Ormstein Greetings Mr Haller
15:26 Marion Questi /me grins. "Welcome Mr Haller."
15:26 Marion Questi We have been waiting for your question!
15:26 Shouten Haller Greetings Deans, Ladies and Gentlemen
15:26 Martini Discovolante hihi, Mr Haller
15:27 Gronk Seriman I don't WANT to be marketed to! I will SEEK OUT info I WANT. Not junk I happened to search about several weeks ago!
15:27 Martini Discovolante hi Carl!
15:27 Marion Questi And welcome Chancellor Metropolitan.
15:27 Carl Metropolitan Hello
15:27 Martini Discovolante sorry-- Chancellor Metropolitan, Your Honor.
15:28 Ravelli Ormstein Hello Carl
15:28 Shouten Haller Miss Rosca, down off the stage ... Bad Cat!!
15:28 Gronk Seriman /me apologizes for her blurt.
15:28 Marion Questi There are many who agree with you Miss Seriman.
15:28 Carl Metropolitan I have a question. I 've just found out I'm still paying for nci-sl.org domain. Would anyone object if I forwarded it to caledonoxbridge.org?
15:28 Carl Metropolitan Or would that be petty?
15:29 Tali Rosca I was about to say, NCI, possibly.
15:29 Ravelli Ormstein hm, is NCI still active?
15:29 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Very
15:29 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) NCI chat is full of chatter as we speak.
15:30 Carl Metropolitan Yes. They are still active
15:30 Tali Rosca Honestly, I'd say don't do it. No need to be courting trouble.
15:30 Carl Metropolitan I just got annoyed when I noticed I was still paying for their domain. I guess it's my fault.
15:30 Ravelli Ormstein perhaps handing them out that domain
15:30 Martini Discovolante there are worse places you could send it :3
15:31 Ravelli Ormstein :-)
15:31 Carl Metropolitan I thought I had.
15:31 Carl Metropolitan Oh well.
15:31 Carl Metropolitan Someone ask a serious question.
15:32 Gronk Seriman Are we all going to die?
15:32 Tali Rosca Ok, something I didn't want to bring up last week...
15:32 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) All forms are impermanent
15:32 Tali Rosca But I see we have a group of older, evenheaded people this week.
15:33 Carl Metropolitan /me looks around for them.
15:33 Tali Rosca I'll point to the fact that LL changed the ToS in August.
15:33 Tali Rosca There is a rather critical update to the wording.
15:34 Shouten Haller Does it pertain specifically to older people?
15:35 Tali Rosca When uploading assets, the old ToS stated that you gave LL the non-exclusive, unrestricted [...] right to modify and distribute [...] solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the Service.
15:35 Tali Rosca That is common wording for hosting providers.
15:35 Tali Rosca They need the right to reformat and distribute; that's what they do, after all.
15:35 Tali Rosca The new ToS states that you give LL the rights "for any purpose whatsoever".
15:36 Gronk Seriman Ooo!
15:36 Tali Rosca There are two issues here,
15:36 Carl Metropolitan I need to go read that.
15:36 Meora (menchor) part of that has to do with how marketplace works
15:36 Tali Rosca 1) You sign away all commercial rights to anything you upload.
15:37 Tali Rosca 2) You can no longer use pretty much *any* 3rd party library, since you do not have so sweeping rights to give away.
15:37 Tali Rosca LL of course says that "Oh, we don't mean it; trust us".
15:37 Tali Rosca But the wording in the ToS is explicit, and that is what counts when it comes to matching licenses.
15:38 Meora (menchor) they also replied to someone which could be used as evidence if they didn't follow it
15:38 Tali Rosca You're probably referring to Inara's blog about it. She got a statement from LL.
15:38 Tali Rosca http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/tos-change-and-content-rights-lab-provides-statement/
15:38 Meora (menchor) yes
15:40 Tali Rosca NWN is unusually pro-LL, but misses the point that no matter what we *think* LL will ultimately do, there is a license issue with what is actually written: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2013/09/linden-lab-tos-textures.html
15:40 Tali Rosca I consider this a pretty big deal, but I didn't want to bring it up in a too big, too easily scared crows.
15:40 Tali Rosca *crowd
15:41 Ravelli Ormstein do you think LL will update the TOS to fix that?
15:41 Carl Metropolitan I just read the updated ToS. I think Tali is right. That gives LL a license to do anything they want with anything you upload forever with no renumeration.
15:41 Tali Rosca I am hoping to help stir up enough awareness that LL will change it back, yes.
15:42 Tali Rosca The old wording, which included the "solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the Service" is pretty standard legalese by now, and there is no need for LL to not use what the rest of the industry is using.
15:42 Carl Metropolitan Here is a statement I found on the issue from LL: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/tos-change-and-content-rights-lab-provides-statement/
15:42 Carl Metropolitan It says nothing.
15:43 Carl Metropolitan Other than "trust us"
15:43 Meora (menchor) there is the issue of marketplace where the sale is actually by LL who is facilitating the contact between buyer and seller
15:43 Carl Metropolitan Which as anyone who's been in business knows is a synonym for "fuck you"
15:43 Ravelli Ormstein that is Tali's link, Carl :-)
15:43 Tali Rosca The marketplace issue is a red herring.
15:43 Meora (menchor) that was covered in the comments
15:43 Carl Metropolitan Oh. Sorry.
15:44 Meora (menchor) however that can be made explicit the wording is too broad
15:44 Ravelli Ormstein but a virtual world without property will not work, at least i don't know how
15:44 Carl Metropolitan Well, I'm looking at Tali's link now.
15:44 Meora (menchor) and there is the copyright issue that isn't addressed
15:45 Tali Rosca Jo Yardley's blog sort of became the launchpad people referred to, though it had been bubbling in other corners before that: https://joyardley.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/huge-problem-for-all-creators-in-second-life/
15:45 Gronk Seriman /me feels safe. Everything she uploaded was for her use. To use or give away. Oh wait!
15:46 Carl Metropolitan The advice given by Hamlet in her link of "And if you really are worried, copyright your content before putting in Second Life." is meaningless. Your creative works are already copyrighted from the moment of publication under US law.
15:46 Tali Rosca (And as you'll notice, I've been kicking and screaming in the comments there)
15:46 Tali Rosca Yes, Hamlet is completely missing the point.
15:46 Carl Metropolitan And the new ToS specifically assigns LL rights as a licensor of your copyright.
15:47 Tali Rosca You have the copyright, and you keep it. Nobody is challenging that. You are, however, specifically giving a license for all commercial use, for anything.
15:47 Carl Metropolitan Under current US copyright law, you do have a chance to revoke assigned rights after 35 years. Who thinks SL will be here in 35 years?
15:47 Ravelli Ormstein /me raises two hands
15:48 Shouten Haller Has LL come forward with their reasons for changing the wording of the TOS? Obviously they had some reason in mind.
15:48 Tali Rosca No.
15:48 Meora (menchor) standardizing the TOS for their products which is lame
15:49 Ravelli Ormstein Greetings Mr Ashbourne
15:49 Carl Metropolitan Of course if the new ToS ever went to court, there is a good chance it would not be upheld. It might be considered a contract of adhesion or an unconscionable contract. But the amounts of money at stake are so small that , it would probably not be worth doing.
15:49 Miran Ashbourne Hello
15:49 Tali Rosca Personally, I think it is an amateur screwup by a lawyer who couldn't be bothered to research the standards around hosting when writing the standardized ToS, as Meora mentions.
15:49 Tali Rosca And I agree, Carl, that it could probably be challenged.
15:49 Marion Questi With the introduction of mesh, it is possible to transfer content to other non-SL rendering platforms. It's not secret that LL wants to expand...and at some point the SL platform will need to be replaced.
15:50 Tali Rosca But I really don't want to have to test that theory.
15:50 Meora (menchor) anyone have about $70k they want to spend on it?
15:50 Tali Rosca Notably, CGTextures, which is pretty well-known texture repository, has given a statement that their textures can no longer be used in SL under that ToS.
15:51 Carl Metropolitan I don't even have enough money to own land in Caledon :(
15:51 Tali Rosca And I think that their interpretation is correct.
15:51 Tali Rosca (Including them mentioning that practically no libraries can be used)
15:52 Meora (menchor) I think LL needs to change things to protect the 3rd party libraries
15:52 Carl Metropolitan That would also apply to a lot of content out there licensed under CC 3.0, too.
15:52 Carl Metropolitan As well as third party libraries.
15:53 Tali Rosca Yes. Even something as lenient as a Creative Commons attribution is blocked, since you have to give LL the right to use it in any way they want (including no attribution).
15:53 Gronk Seriman LL is not run by the people who ran it before. They had a big "Ooops!
15:53 Meora (menchor) I suspect they were not expecting the push back either
15:54 Gronk Seriman ...when they tried the Open Source thingy before. They are trying to close whe walls in their gerdern.
15:54 Gronk Seriman garden
15:54 Tali Rosca As I mention in the comments in some of those threads, I call Hanlon's Razor on this one.
15:54 Tali Rosca Do not ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
15:55 Meora (menchor) incompetence from LL what a surprise!!!
15:55 Tali Rosca I honestly do not think there's some conspiracy to run giggling away and sell everybody's work as stock art.
15:56 Marion Questi Folks we are almost out of time. Any last questions?
15:56 Shouten Haller But their response was "Trust us", which suggests they wish for the wording to remain
15:56 Carl Metropolitan Yes. And what does "Trust Us" mean in the world of business and lawyers?
15:57 Tali Rosca /me hijacked the QA for her soap box.
15:57 Gronk Seriman But LL has a big problem. Art people made, then left SL. They have to support it., because people own it.
15:57 Meora (menchor) like the S 7P ratings on mortgage bonds?
15:57 Ravelli Ormstein and what, if there will be other heads at LL in one year with a different opinion about this wording...
15:58 Ravelli Ormstein Tali, that is an important topic, so good to discuss it here
15:58 Tali Rosca It seems like an appropriate forum this week.
15:59 Carl Metropolitan I'd also have to read the contract carefully, but I wonder if it is a retroactive change? I.e., by clicking "yes" you certify that anything you've ever uploaded now falls under these rules.
15:59 Tali Rosca They simply cannot do that.
15:59 Gronk Seriman Absolutely! Thank you Tali!
15:59 Meora (menchor) this brings up the issue of pirated meshes on Marketplace..................
15:59 Meora (menchor) lol
15:59 Ravelli Ormstein thats a good question, Carl
15:59 Carl Metropolitan And pirated textures.
15:59 Meora (menchor) yep
16:00 Carl Metropolitan I've gotten to the point where I will not buy textures in SL. I've found so many -- even from professional texture makers -- were pirated.
16:01 Tali Rosca I got to that point fairly quickly. I already had a decent texture library from various sources, and recognized a lot of sold textures from those packs.
16:01 Marion Questi And that will have to be that last word. We are out of time.
16:02 Marion Questi Thank you all for coming. Thank you Dean Rosca for a discussion topic!
16:02 Gronk Seriman Gah!
16:02 Martini Discovolante thanks all!
16:02 Larkylouz Thank you Deans. As always, informative.
16:02 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Okay. Bedtime for me.
16:02 Ravelli Ormstein thank you all for coming, we will be back next week
16:02 Gronk Seriman I was about to put oin my Pirate hat and say Arrr! a lot!
16:03 Tali Rosca That's next Wednesday, I think.
16:03 Gronk Seriman Oh yes!
16:03 Tali Rosca Sorry, Thursday.
16:03 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Be seeing you
16:03 Tali Rosca September 19.
16:03 Gronk Seriman Thank you, Deans!
16:04 Marion Questi I'm off to dinner. Good night my friends!
16:04 Tali Rosca See you
16:04 Carl Metropolitan Bye